The Widening Scope of Shame is the first collection of papers on shame to appear in a decade and contains contributions from most of the major authors currently writing on this topic. It is not a sourcebook, but a comprehensive introduction to clinical and theoretical perspectives on shame that is intended to be read cover to cover. The panoramic scope of this multidisciplinary volume is evidenced by a variety of clinically and developmentally grounded chapters; by chapters explicating the theories of Silvan Tomkins and Helen Block Lewis; and by chapters examining shame from the viewpoints of philosophy, social theory, and the study of family systems. A final section of brief chapters illuminates shame in relation to specific clinical problems and experiential contexts, including envy, attention deficit disorder, infertility, masochism, the medical setting, and religious experience. This collection will be of special interest to psychoanalytically oriented readers. It begins with a chapter charting the evolution of Freud's thinking on shame, followed by chapters providing contemporary perspectives on the role of shame in development, and the status of shame within the theory of narcissism. Of further psychoanalytic interest are two reprinted classics by Sidney Levin on shame and marital dysfunction. In both depth of clinical coverage and breadth of perspectives, The Widening Scope of Shame is unique in the shame literature. Readable, well organized, and completely up to date, it becomes essential reading for all students of this intriguing and unsettling emotion and of human development more generally.

In The Shame That Lingers: A Survivor-Centered Critique of Catholic Sin-Talk, A. Denise Starkey argues that the dominant legal model of sin in the Catholic Church is inadequate for hearing the experience of sin for survivors of childhood and domestic violence because it functions to shame rather than to heal. A universal understanding of the sinner, as found in mainstream Catholic sin-talk and confession, impedes human flourishing by silencing radical suffering in ways that make survivors complicit for the harm done to them. Starkey argues that a shame-free theology of sin is necessary if survivors are to encounter the profound love of God. Understanding sin from the perspective of the sinned-against makes possible a transformative solidarity with the other by reinvisioning the roles of speaker and listener.

This book offers ten distinguished analysts' insights on shame from various perspectives, which include its developmental substrate, vicissitudes during adolescence, and manifestations in the course of aging and infirmity. It seeks to advance clinicians' empathy and therapeutic skills in this realm.

Winner of the 2009 Gradiva Award for Outstanding Psychoanalytic Publication! Within the title of her book, Making a Difference in Patients' Lives, Sandra Buechler echoes the hope of all clinicians. But, she counters, experience soon convinces most of us that insight, on its own, is often not powerful enough to have a significant impact on how a life is actually lived. Many clinicians and therapists have turned toward emotional experience, within and outside the treatment setting, as a resource. How can the immense power of lived emotional experience be harnessed in the service of helping patients live richer, more satisfying lives? Most patients come into treatment because they are too anxious, or depressed, or don’t seem to feel alive enough. Something is wrong with what they feel, or don’t feel. Given that the emotions operate as a system, with the intensity of each affecting the level of all the others, it makes sense that it would be an emotional experience that would have enough power to change what we feel. But, ironically, the wider culture, and even psychoanalysts, seem to favor "solutions" that aim to mute emotionality, rather than relying on one emotion to modify another. We turn to pharmaceutical, cognitive, or behavioral change to make a difference in how life feels. Because we are afraid of emotional intensity, we cut off our most powerful source of regulation. In clear, jargon-free prose that utilizes both clinical vignettes and excerpts from poetry, art, and literature, Buechler explores how the power to feel can become the power to change. Through an active empathic engagement with the patient and an awareness of the healing potential inherent in each of our fundamental emotions, the clinician can make a substantial difference in the patient’s capacity to embrace life.

For Better, For Worse discusses the shame narratives tied to divorce, rooted in Christian theologies of marriage and U.S. political landscapes of marriage rights and regulation. Using interdisciplinary methods, Natalie E. Williams investigates the current conflict between social practices that normalize divorce and religious and political rhetorical narratives that continue to shame those who divorce. Williams's work seeks to understand current attitudes and policies related to divorce and to shape Christian ethical responses that resist the use of shame, relying instead on commitments to truth-telling and a cultivation of “shamelessness” to support flourishing across a spectrum of family forms.

This comprehensive, introductory text makes the concepts of self psychology accessible for students and clinicians. It begins with an overview of the development of Kohut's ideas, particularly those on narcissism and narcissistic development and explains the self object concept that is at the core of the self psychological vision of human experience. It also includes brief overviews, of the allied theoretical perspectives of intersubjectivity and motivational systems theory. Numerous clinical vignettes are furnished to illustrate theoretical concepts as well as one continuous case vignette that is woven throughout the book.

This volume takes its title from the first-century Christian catechism called the Didache: “Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills . . . gathered together and became one, so let Your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth.” For Christians today, these words remain relevant in an era of massive human movements (voluntary and coerced), hybrid identities, and wide-ranging cultural interactions. How do modern Christians live as both a “scattered” and “gathered” people? How do they live out the tension between ecclesial universality (catholicity) and particularity (distinctive ways of being church in a given culture and context)? Do Christians today constitute a “diaspora,” a people dispersed across borders and cultures that nonetheless maintains a sense of commonality and mission? Scattered and Gathered: Catholics in Diaspora explores these questions through the work of fourteen scholars in different fields and from different corners of the world. Whether through reflections on Zimbabweans in Britain, Levantines in North America, or the remote island people of Chiloé now living in other parts of Chile, they guide readers along the winding road of insights and challenges facing many of today’s Christians.